This review of the Thermalright SLK-800 and SK-7 will illustrate the temperature difference between the two heatsinks, as well as show the cooling effects of three different fans both pushing air onto and pulling air from the heatsink.

Firewire and USB2 are two welcome replacements for external scsi. With hot plugging, no id conflicts, and no terminators, the headaches of having a fast external drive are now gone. Most computers now come with both Firewire and USB2 built in, meaning the only decision to be made about choosing one comes when buying periherials. With USB2 having a theoretical bandwith of 480Mbit/sec, it is expected to be a bit faster than 400Mbit/sec Firewire. But specs do not always tell the whole story, so here are some benchmarks.

A boot loader is, at first glance, a menu that displays a list of operating systems. Before a computer boots, the boot loader allows a selection to be made from all available operating systems on the computer. This allows the user to have their computer installed with, for example, both Windows and Linux. The user can quickly choose between the two when the computer is turned on.

Choosing the right boot loader depends on the operating system that will be installed on the computer. This review covers six popular boot loaders, and the features and downfalls of each.

I was prompted to purchase the Lexar JumpDrive 2.0 Pro over other similar products because it has a keychain ring, and because it looks good. I was initially concerned about the size of the JumpDrive Pro because I wanted use the keychain function any carry it around in my pocket. It passed the size test, as I attached it to my keychain two weeks ago and have not yet removed it.

After happily receiving my second Western Digital Special Edition 8 MB Cache (WD1200JB) hard drive and mailing the the rebate forms I compared its sector count to my original drive. The sector count is significant for these drives because it indicates if the drive is based on 40 GB platters, or the newer 60 GB platters. I had read that the 60 GB/platter drive was preferable because the higher density platters of the drive gave it better performance. But how much better? And if I received the 40 GB/platter drive, should I be disappointed and return it?